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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Digging for Esther’s Husband

Joseph and Julia (Pierce) Anderson had a total of nine children. I’ve written about this family in this blog many times. I had tracked down info on all of them except child number two, Esther S. Anderson. In looking at the obituaries for Esther’s mother and older sister (Mary Hannah Anderson), I noticed that the list of pallbearers had a few familiar names and a few repeating names. Many other family members have obituaries but none of them include the pallbearers.

Julia’s Pallbearers (1956)

Odell Rich
John Chasse

Gordon Eastman

Francis Marcotte

Roy Duross

Homer Garcia

Mary’s Pallbearers (1967)

Leo Machell

John Chasse

Guy Anderson

Maurice Duross

Roy Duross
Thomas Garcia

In a shot in the dark move, I decided to trace all of the pallbearers to see if any of them lead me to Esther. I knew that Esther was alive in 1912 at the time of the death of her younger brother, William Joseph Anderson. William’s obituary mentions that he is survived by three brothers and five sisters, which means he was the first of the nine children to die. In 1912, Esther was 27 and it seemed a reasonable assumption that she was married. The Maine marriage index had no marriage for her. So I began to systematically look up each of the pallbearers.

Since Roy Duross appeared on both lists, I started with him. I found that he worked at the Saco-Lowell Machine Shops, which is also where Frank Anderson worked. I assumed that Roy and Maurice Duross were family friends.

I could identify Guy Anderson as Frank’s son and John Chasse as Sarah Jane (Anderson) Chasse’s son.

I took a stab at Odell Rich and found that he was married to an Esther. But was it my Esther? I did the general survey search that every genealogist does and I found the following items:

A New Hampshire Marriage Record for Odell C. Rich and Esther Anderson. Esther’s parents were listed as Joseph and Julia Anderson. Odell’s Esther was indeed my Esther.

I’m on the hunt for obituaries and burial locations. The Sun Journal seems to be the preferred newspaper for the obituaries. I’ll post an update when I learn more. In the meantime, if you're hunting for a wayward husband, you might want to examine the pallbearers in family obituaries to see if any of them look promising as a possible mate.

According to her obituary, she's the daughter of Edwin J. and Elinor Doughty Mann. Her father owned Lewis M. Mann & Son, a clothespin manufacturing company. The kind soul who sent me info on Gertrude noted that Odell worked for his ex-father-in-law's company. However, Gertrude's obituary doesn't mention this first marriage. It does note that her second marriage to Harlan Stanley Andrews occured 25 Oct 1947.

Gertrude and Stanley owned Cole's Hardware store in Bryant Pond where they lived for more than 40 years.

Gertrude and Stanley spent at least part of their time in Brandon, Florida where Gertrude was a member of the United Church of Christ.

The obituary reports that two step sons preceded Gertrude in death: James and Ormond. The survivors include her husand, H. Stanley Andrews, and four daughters; 12 grandchildren; 24 great-grandchildren.

Her funeral was held at the West Paris Universalist Church. Burial was in the Wayside Cemetery, Main Street, West Paris.